


What Kind of Man

by wirewrappedlily



Series: Between the Head and the Hart [1]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: M/M, Prompt Based, kind of canon otherwise, same age!Hartwin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-03-23 06:52:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3758590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The truth of the matter was, when he'd been going through Kingsman training, he'd thought he'd be making Eggsy proud. </p><p>Eggsy's father had left him with some strange wounds, but what Lee Unwin's greatest gift to his son had been was the sense of moral decency; the urge to make better, be it for his family, or for his country, or for the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nobody Home

**Author's Note:**

> So I had to have a little bit of creative license with the timeline, please suspend disbelief that Merlin wants to be right so badly that he would do that.
> 
>  **Prompt:** http://wirewrappedlily.tumblr.com/post/116572901694/same-age-hartwin-where-eggsy-and-harry-have-been

There was not much in life that went smoothly. Harry Hart had learned this time and again: it started, to his estimation, around the time he became best friends with a scholarship kid who willingly let himself be called Eggsy; things only got more complicated when Harry fell in love with him, and Eggsy (miracle of bloody miracles, to Harry's mind) turned out to love him back. 

But as they got older, and the love between them only got stronger, Harry thought that things would only go more smoothly. He and Eggsy fought, but there was no doubt to either of them that they were meant for each other, and there was no turning back from that. With that in mind, it would only be reasonable to anyone with eyes that when Harry was put in a barracks under a mansion and told to write his information and that of his next-of-kin, Harry wrote Eggsy's name, and the address of the home they'd shared together since Harry had come into his inheritance. 

Harry Hart hadn't been meant to become a Kingsman agent. Originally, he'd thought himself on the path of a politician. Then a lawyer. But Harry had learned, in the darkest days there had ever been between himself and Eggsy, how to both throw and take a hit. 

Eggsy's step-father had been a bastard of the highest order, and if Harry hadn't mopped the floor with him one day after seeing Eggsy's cheek bruised and swollen with blow after blow, Michelle Unwin and baby Daisy may have fell under his abusive fist as well. 

Of course, looking back, perhaps disappearing into Kingsman training without being able to send word to Eggsy of any of it had been a little too close to what had happened with Eggsy's father: Who hadn't been with his unit when he'd died, and no one knew how or why he had disappeared; no one had known where he was, until Eggsy had stolen Harry's car and they'd tested his DNA for a link to any other crimes and a paternal match to a murder victim had been the only result. 

Now, standing in front of a man half-clothed and certainly not his Eggsy, Harry had to wonder just how badly he'd fucked up. 

He'd leapt out of perfectly serviceable airplanes, and he'd pointed what he'd thought was a live gun at his bloody dog and managed to pull the trigger. He'd been tied to a traintrack and had not divulged his information. But with the stranger in his home, with his Eggsy, Harry Hart felt as though he'd finally come to the last straw; that this would be what made him go truly mad. 

"I'm terribly sorry, I seem to have the wrong house..." Harry murmured, off-balance and honestly bereft. 

"James, mate, who is it?" Eggsy's voice called from further into the house, his heavy footfalls coming towards them. 

Harry very suddenly found himself needing to run before Eggsy could see him; could clap eyes on the look on Harry's face and _know_ just what had been done to him with this change. 

"Harry?" Eggsy asked, coming to stand just behind the man-- _James_ 's shoulder. "Harry?" 

With the break in Eggsy's voice, James stepped out from between them, letting Eggsy fall forward, past his new boyfriend and into the arms of his old. 

"What the buggering fuck, Harry?" Eggsy gasped, hands gripping Harry's suit jacket hard enough to crease. 

"I-I--" 

Eggsy smashed their lips together, "Fuck it, I don't care. You're back now, yeah? Come inside, then--and who's this?" Eggsy caught sight of Mr. Pickles, a smile lighting up his features. 

"It's nice to finally meet you, Harry Hart. I'm Detective Inspector James Calloway, your boy Eggsy and I have been looking for you for months." 

Harry blinked stupidly, then registered that a hand had been offered for his to shake. 

"Terribly sorry to have caused that much upset." Harry managed, voice choked. 

"Hardly, Mr. Hart." James replied, "Now, if you don't mind, Eggsy, I'll take you up on that extra shirt, and go home to see my wife." 

"'Course, James. I'll see what I can do about getting the blood out. Mrs. Wei up the block knows all the tricks." Eggsy said hurriedly, as if remembering himself. Pulling himself away from the pup, he rushed into one of the spare rooms, coming back with a shirt that looked respectable enough. 

"Mr. Hart, Eggsy, I do hope to hear the story soon." James bid farewell, slipping past Harry and out of the door. 

Harry turned to look at Eggsy, a million questions in his eyes. 

"You left without any word." Eggsy told him simply, "James was a guest lecturer in the criminal justice class, and I got the bright idea to corner 'im and demand that he help. He 'greed, if I helped him in return. I been going undercover for 'im, and 'e's had MI5 through Interpol looking for you." 

"Fuck." Harry finally managed under the dulled light of Eggsy's gorgeous green eyes. 

Eggsy ducked a nod, looking down at Mr. Pickles again. "You got a lot of explainin' to do, Harry." 

"Eggsy," Harry stepped forward, reaching for him, only to have the love of his life step back, refusing to allow it. 

"I thought you'd died, Harry." 

"I didn't, Eggsy, and if I could've contacted you, you know that I would've. The moment I could've." 

"Why couldn't you?!" 

Harry was not allowed to divulge that information. He knew that much. But with Eggsy's eyes huge and hurt, he didn't care in the slightest, "There's a lot that I'm not supposed to tell you now, and I need you to know that I don't give a flying fuck about any of it, because you're it for me. You're the only one I'd let in. I need you to promise me, though, that this won't leave this house."

"Harry?" 

"I've been...for lack of a better phrase, going through the world's most dangerous job interview. I couldn't contact you because I couldn't trust that allowing myself to show how much I love you wouldn't leave myself open to that being used against me. Not that anyone was even allowed to contact their loved ones, but we both know that your influence runs rather deep when it comes to fucking over the rules." 

The pointed look he gives Eggsy isn't met with the usual smug grin, but a look of desperate sadness that he knows all too well. "Why are you lying to me? Why did you go, Harry? Really? Who--Who is it?" 

"Eggsy--" 

"NO! I looked for you! I nearly died trying to find you: James almost got shot and--" Eggsy's voice broke, and he took a deep breath, then another, before continuing in a dreadful, unfeeling calm, "Telling me that you were off...becoming a spy? We've been together long enough, now, Harry, that you should know better than to lie to me with something like that. I'm not some ditz you picked up at the pub. You know what? If tha's really what you think o' me, I don' wanna know who you disappeared with." 

Eggsy turned on his heel and pushed back into that spare room, and Harry opened his mouth to say something--anything--as Eggsy slung a familiar duffle over his shoulder, opening the closet that housed their washer and dryer and pulling a blood-stained button up from the washer to shove it into a plastic bag. 

"I'll be back for the rest o' me stuff when I find a flat." Eggsy shoved past Harry and out of the door, Mr. Pickles whining at Harry's feet as he made a grab for Eggsy to stop him from going. 

"Eggsy, no, wait--" 

"I did, Harry! I waited for months to hear from you! To find you! I...I'm glad you're not hurt. But wherever you were, whoever you were wit', I hope it was fuckin' worth it." 

Eggsy turned and went down the front steps, striding for the main road without looking back. 

Harry looked down at Mr. Pickles, feeling the cold well of dread choke him. 

"That was the love of my life, boy." Harry introduced him, "And I think that there may be no good way to get out of this one."

~

Harry had changed the locks--not to lock Eggsy out, but to lock his things in. 

However, when he came home from a mission in Cornwall to find that Eggsy had broken in and taken all of his things anyway, and shifted everything just two inches to the left for good measure, Harry couldn't blame him for resisting even that underhanded tactic to try to open communications. 

Harry delivered a present on Daisy's birthday, only to find that Daisy and Michelle had moved as well as Eggsy, and two weeks later Harry received a cheque in the mail for the very amount Harry had put down as deposit on the flat Michelle and Daisy had been living in. 

The routine in the way he'd lived held, though; every Tuesday afternoon, he went grocery shopping in a smaller store halfway across the city, because they were the only ones in the city that carried a particular favourite of Eggsy's: and that's how Harry came cart-to-cart with Michelle Unwin and Daisy. 

"'Ry!" Daisy cooed, lifting her arms to him with a brilliant smile. Michelle clucked her tongue, picking her daughter up before Harry could do it by force of habit, shooting Harry a glare that could kill. 

"Michelle--" Harry began. 

Michelle didn't reply: didn't so much as give him a second glance, guiding her cart away while she cooed to Daisy about what they were making for dinner. 

It wasn't until three days later that Harry answered to a pounding at his door, Michelle Unwin standing in the pouring rain, looking like an avenging angel as lightning struck behind her. 

"HE'S GONE!" She shrieked, her make-up running as she advanced on him. 

Harry stood sure where he was, letting her come, letting the torrential downpour of rage and pain come to sweep him under. 

"HE'S GONE TO GO BLOODY GET HIMSELF KILLED! I'LL LOSE HIM JUST LIKE I LOST LEE, AND YOU FUCKER, YOU FUCKING BROKE HIS HEART!" 

She threw a vase at him, and Harry didn't so much as flinch as it shattered over his shoulder. "Michelle," Harry interjected, voice calculated to pierce through the red haze of her anger, "where has Eggsy gone?" 

She collapsed there in the foyer, crying into Harry's button-up and unable to breathe. 

Finally, Harry coaxed the answers out of her: that Eggsy had given up on going to the Olympics for his gymnastics when he'd started undercover for Detective Inspector James Calloway; that his thesis hadn't been touched since Harry had disappeared, and Eggsy's academic career was done. And, worst of all, Eggsy _had_ gone. He'd joined the Navy and sent Michelle and Daisy his pay because he'd determined that being an officer was the only thing left for him.

Harry put his almost-mother in law to bed in the spare room that Eggsy had moved his things into during Harry's disappearance, because their bed wasn't right without him there. 

Harry felt much the same way now, if he was being honest. He drank himself to sleep more often than not, sitting in front of the room Harry had transformed into Eggsy's thesis-bunker; the scattered papers remaining scattered, and he half-thought that if he could manage to keep Mr. Pickles from getting in this room, he might never move them. 

Harry hadn't been to see James Calloway; he knew that inviting questions he'd be unable to answer would cause nothing but trouble. But now, with the weight of having cost Eggsy his future on his shoulders, Harry had to see the man. 

"Ah, Mr. Hart, nice to--" was as far as James Calloway got before Harry was looming over the man, a threat written in every sharp line of his perfectly tailored suit. 

"You cost a genius his life by asking him to go undercover for you, Detective Inspector." Harry told the man in a cool, crisp undertone, "It's not escaped me that you asked him because his step-father was a criminal stain on the city of London; nor has it escaped me that you have a history of cutting your losses when it comes to your confidential informants. Gary Unwin," using his legal name felt wrong on the tongue, but it was the correct choice in facing this man down, "was not the first civilian you've used to infiltrate a criminal organization, but he does hold the distinction of being the only one to not only survive, but escape jail time. Judging by the timing of my return and the subsequent sting operation, I must assume that this is because he stopped working for you when I returned." James's face twisted into a mask of ugly mockery, but Harry simply continued, "As such, I will tell you once and for all now, that if you ever try to contact him again, I will prove just where I was for those two and a half months, and you will never see the light of day again." 

He left the bastard quaking in his swivel chair, neglecting to even bother using his signet ring to send a good, solid electrical shock through his entire system. James Calloway wasn't worth the effort. 

He understood without Michelle's furtive request not to tell her son that he could not, in good conscience, tell him what had happened to his mother's psyche with his departure. But that didn't mean that he couldn't use every method available to him to keep tabs on him. 

It wasn't until a month had passed with Harry's efforts well and truly split that the first change happened. 

Coming nose to nose with a familiar figure, Harry nearly gawped at the man standing before him: a man who, until recently, had been dead. 

"Ah, Galahad: the man to whom I owe my promotion to the role of London's Merlin division." The Scottish brogue was wonderfully familiar. 

"Y-You..."

"I am the only sorry son of a bitch that has the patience to handle your sorry self." Folding his arms with his tablet in his hands, Harry's new Merlin; the plant of Arthur's that had supposedly died within the first three tasks, raised a challenging brow. "Care to prove them wrong?" 

Harry smiled slowly, the deadly curl of his mouth bringing an answering grin to the new Merlin's mouth. 

"That's what I thought." 

Harry and his Merlin were unstoppable; missions falling at their collective feet until Harry found himself Arthur's favoured solution: Merlin the head of the London tech division. If Harry was being truthful, he could easily have gotten himself killed a thousand times over if Merlin had not offered what he had. 

With Merlin's eyes on the Unwins, Harry found himself able to put the constant knot of worry aside and truly devote himself to what he'd given them up in exchange for. 

But the second change that came was not as much a blessing as the first. 

Harry knew Eggsy's mates, of course; they used to tease Eggsy about his posh boyfriend just as much as they teased Harry about liking his bit of rough. But when Jamal showed up on his doorstep with Daisy in his arms and a look like he'd been through hell, Harry knew that what he was facing now would be worse than that dirty bomb he'd defused in Paris. 

"My little flower," Harry sighed, taking her out of Jamal's arms and ushering him in quickly, "why the tears?" Cooing to the little one, Harry tucked her tear-streaked face under his jaw, turning to Jamal and taking in what he could, "Are you injured?" 

"Nah--" 

"But you could use a drink." Harry diagnosed, nodding once, "C'mon." 

"'Arry, you an' Eggsy's done, bu'--" 

"What happened?" 

"Poodle 'n his lot caugh' up to Mrs. Unwin. I don' know wha' they all did, bu' I was watchin' Daisy, an' Mrs. Unwin was runnin' late." 

"You went looking for her," Harry prompted. 

"I couldn' find 'er, but Rottweiler fuckin' told me they'd got 'er!" Jamal exploded, gesticulating wildly. 

"Alright. Jamal, sit down, have a drink, and try to calm down. I'll call some friends of mine, we should be able to find her. I may yet need to ask you to keep an eye on Daisy--" 

"Yeah, me an' Ry looked all over the housing--" 

"Is Ryan still looking?" Harry asked calmly, half-manhandling Jamal into the seat and thrusting a glass of whiskey under his nose. Jamal nodded frantically, and Harry hummed, then turned for the other room, going to get his glasses but also putting a useless phone to his ear to complete the charade. "Merlin?" 

 _"Yes, Galahad? What can I do for ye?"_  

"Michelle Unwin has gone missing, and there's reason to think that she is in quite a bit of danger." 

 _"On it, Galahad."_ The urgency behind Merlin's brogue was reassuring in a visceral way; he knew what the Unwins meant to Harry, and was willing to do whatever he had to in order to make sure they were all okay. 

"Call the tele when you find something, and if you happen to stumble upon where Dean Baker and his goons are hiding out now, the information will be put to very good use." 

_"Understood."_

Harry put down the receiver without bothering to remove the glasses, turning his head to Daisy and hugging her close as he listened to Merlin grumbling to himself. "Jamal? I've called around, it's only a matter of time before we find Michelle." 

Jamal looked pale still, but he hadn't simply downed the drink, so he wasn't as peaky as he'd looked. "Thank you, 'Arry. I didn' know wha' else ta do." 

"Jamal, if anything like this ever happens again--to the Unwins, or even to you, you can turn to me." Harry told him earnestly, "Eggsy and I may not be together anymore--" 

"Ya still love 'im." Jamal cut in, eyes keen and bright. 

"I always have, and I always shall." Harry answered simply, "I left because I had a chance at a job I thought would be the best chance for Eggsy and I." 

Jamal was silent, his jaw working as he considered Harry, "'E told us tha' you said sumfing like tha'--we all thought you lied. Bu' you ain't got no reason to lie ta me, so you weren' lyin' to 'im, were ya?" 

Harry shook his head, catching Daisy's fingers as they went for his glasses, the deft ease of it pulling at his throat. 

"So wha' we gonna tell the big guy, huh? Wha' with Eggsy gettin' me a job, I ain't got time to stay wit' the little 'un if Mrs. Unwin ain't up for it." 

 _"I'll see about clearing your roster, Harry."_ Merlin said softly into his ear, and Harry had to bite down on the wave of gratitude that flooded him. 

"I may be able to get some leave, but let's first hope that they were lying." 

Jamal had a wry twist to his mouth as he took another drink from his glass, "You got wha'ever job you was after." 

"Yes." Harry agreed, sitting back and letting Daisy form the perfect, warm ball of baby against his chest, "And to answer your next question, no it wasn't worth losing him for it." 

"Why didn' you call?" 

"I never got a chance. It was against the rules, and there was no opportunity to break them." 

"Thought we woulda taught you by now, you gotta make your own opportunity." 

"What was it like for him?" Harry asked quietly, one of his fingers trapped in the curl of Daisy's small fist as she started to fall asleep against him. 

It was an answer they both knew he didn't really want to have given, but it was necessary anyway. "'E got into a righ' state. Thought you was dead; tha' bloody Dean had killed ya. Talked to your sister, came back frommat almost in tears. Den 'e took up wit' helpin' that ruddy copper, an' fuckin' everythin' just stopped matterin' to 'im but findin' you."

Harry felt honestly queasy at this tidal wave of information. That Eggsy had gone to see his sister made him feel impossibly more guilty than he already did; his politically-minded sister hated Eggsy and had made that plain. She'd been the reason why, so very many years ago, Eggsy had stolen Harry's car. 

She'd lied to the fatherless fifteen-year-old; that Harry, newly sixteen and already desperately in love with the boy he called his best friend, was simply being polite to a fault, letting a boy of inferior birth and no means call himself a friend. Eggsy had ended up in jail for only five hours before Harry had stormed in the precinct and demanded his release, leaving the police with a DNA sample that led them to Lee Unwin's unidentifiable body. Michelle had fallen in with Dean Baker not long after that, and Harry couldn't help but feel that his sister was the cause of all of it. 

"You wouldn't happen to know what she said to him, would you?" Harry asked, voice tight. 

Jamal shook his head, "Nah, man. You know how Eggsy is. He don' put tha' shit out there. Only tol' me 'bout what happened wit' you 'cause 'e was in such a fucking state 'fore he left for the Marines."

"He got you a job?" Harry inquired softly, one long hand laying over Daisy's back. 

"Tha' 'e did. Got me an' Ry both jobs wi' a construction company. Not bein' scared a' heights helps wit' the job." Jamal looked down at the baby soundly asleep on Harry's chest, her little fist tight around one of Harry's long fingers. "Y'know, I ain't seen 'er do tha' since las' time Eggsy were home." 

Harry hummed, looking down at the sleeping baby, "She's very particular about her pillows. Eggsy is--was--much the same, though I daresay the Marines will have quite cured him of a need for anything more than something horizontal on which to lay." 

"'E weren' sleepin' at all for the longest time." 

Harry frowned, and raised his gaze to meet Jamal's. 

"Y'know, I coul' always see you two gettin' married 'n the like. If you still love 'im, don' give up on 'im. You're the only one who never 'as." 

The phone rang in the next room, and Harry gave Daisy back over to Jamal as he went to get it, Merlin's voice clicking into his ear. 

_"We've got her. Percival is taking her to hospital, the son of a bitch pushed her down stairs to the Tube then dragged her further from the end to make it look like she was some working girl passed out in the tunnels. I'm willing to send in Lancelot at this point, so he can be thoroughly acquainted with a gun wielded by a smarmy git, but it's your call."_

"Actions have been--" 

_"Not sanctioned, but wha' Arthur don't know won't hurt 'im, as the saying goes."_

"I want this done quietly and thoroughly. Keep an eye out for any movement while I get Daisy settled in and her babysitter--" 

 _"I'll take care of it, be there in twenty."_ Merlin replied easily, and Harry felt a swell of thankfulness for such good friends. 

He returned to Jamal and the woken Daisy, "I've a friend coming who can watch Daisy. We've found Michelle, she's going to hospital. I'm going to find Dean. I'd appreciate it if you didn't say anything." 

Jamal shook his head, the earnestness of his features giving Harry reassurance for what he already knew. 

"You may go, if you wish. I'll be putting her to bed." Harry offered, taking the child back and humming to get her soft fussing to settle. 

"Thanks, bruv. I think I will, me mam hasn't been well, I ought ta visit 'er." 

"Of course, Jamal. Go, I shall give you a call when I have something with which to update you." 

Jamal nodded his head in thanks, and Harry knew it was no coincidence that a cab pulled up to the curb just as he let Jamal out, Daisy balanced on his hip as he lifted a hand in farewell. 

"Oh, my Daisy." Harry sighed, kissing the little girl's forehead and cuddling her tight in his arms. "I miss your brother more than I'd miss a limb, do you know that?" She looked up at him, sucking on her fingers, "Are you teething again, sweetheart?" He cooed, kissing her forehead. He went to the tap, running a cloth under the cool spray and then wringing most of the water out, depositing it in a plastic bag before stashing it in the freezer to chill even further. "I'll let Merlin know what to do, and we will take such good care of you." 

When the man in question arrived little more than twelve minutes later, Harry was waved off by the cool, collected roll of brogue as Merlin told him quite succinctly that he had seven younger siblings and to stuff it and go. 

Harry went, the anger that was roiling just beneath the surface of his icy veneer casting a polarizing haze on everything around him: there was nothing more than innocents and prey as he stalked down the streets of London towards a pub called the Black Prince. 

The thugs were somewhat familiar, the one they called Rottweiler shooting his mouth off as soon as he realized who Harry was, "Oi, you soddin' poofta, if ya lookin' for a new rentboy, there's plenty o' dem down on Smith Street." 

Harry didn't even blink, his flighty pace even and measured as he snapped his umbrella out, catching the bastard around the back of the neck, and smashing his head down against the sticky, beer-coated table they sat at, sending the pints and empty glasses littered around the gathered muscle spilling with the force of the impact. One gorilla in what cringingly passed for men's clothing stood immediately, bringing himself to his full seven feet and growling down, his shaved head furrowed with the snarl on his features. 

"Manners," Harry's voice was light enough, but carried through the entire bar, the hush falling over the room deathly as he looked to the right at the three hired guns lounging around Dean Baker, "maketh," he continued, dodging a nasty left hook and setting the hook of the umbrella against the brute's old football injury, forcing the leg sideways and knocking him off-balance before stomping down on the shin hard enough that both tibia and fibula broke, "man." He finished, catching the Scotch the gorilla had been drinking and downing it smoothly before deftly tossing it up, catching it, and hitting it like a hockey ball, right for Poodle, Dean's second-in-command. 

The shattered glass was like a starter's pistol, and the dance of taking apart a mark's defences began in earnest. 

It was doubtful Dean was aware that the best fighter often did not mean the biggest muscles; that it took less time for Harry to calculate exactly where to hit his opponent than it took the opponent to get a rather rattled pea-brain around the fact that he'd been hit. 

Before long, everyone but Harry was on the floor, and though Dean was struggling to sit up under his collapsed bodyguard, fumbling for a gun. 

Harry beat him to it, snagging Poodle up and flinging him across the bar, headfirst into the polished but undoubtedly sticky wood fencing in the taps. Harry took a step forward, plucking the gun from fear-clumsy fingers and simply flicking the barrel of the revolver open to spill the casings on the floor, tossing the empty gun into a fish tank that had seen better days. 

Leaning down over the quivering coward, Harry met his eyes, "You don't know what that means, but allow me to teach you: I warned you once that if you were ever to be near Eggsy, Daisy, or Michelle again, I would no hesitate to kill you. That was my being a gentleman. It was more than you deserved. Now, you and I both know that you may not have been the one to push Michelle down those stairs, but you were the one that had it done. And for that, I will not kill you. At least, not physically." Harry got the man standing, smashing him into first the side of the booth with a demur and unfelt apology, before ramming him headfirst into the wooden panel between door and front window. Harry affected clucking at himself over his clumsiness, throwing Dean Baker onto the street and watching the man tumble ass over teakettle down the three steps up from the street. 

Lancelot--James duGaul--was waiting at the curb, a wry smile twisting his smarmy mouth as he watched, amused. He caught Dean as the man tried to get himself upright and run, swinging him into the hood of the car waiting behind him with an oiled feign, "Oh, so sorry about that..." before opening the back door and throwing him into it, smacking his forehead into the roof once for good measure. Lancelot turned to Harry, "Feeling better?" 

"Find a hole in the world, and throw him in it, and I may yet consider the edge to have been taken off." Harry answered, voice finally showing his tightly controlled anger. 

"Don't worry, old friend, I shall be finding a nice, deep hole for him. Though I must point out, for as lovely a plot device as it is, cutting the head off of the proverbial snake never seems to truly work outside of the movies." 

Indicating the pub and its unconscious occupants, Lancelot moved easily to the driver's side, "The Met will be here momentarily. I didn't incapacitate the bartender." Harry replied with a slow smile. There was a file on Merlin's computer that had a thousand things that would send every single person in there away for a good, long time, and the only reason Harry even knew about it was because he'd gotten Merlin drunk two weeks before, and Merlin had admitted to him that he'd become rather fond of Michelle and Daisy, even just keeping an eye on them from time to time; feeling as though they were family to Harry, and he had become family to Harry, too. 

Harry, whose family was either dead or wished he was, had taken all of seconds to acquaint himself with that notion and find it not only agreeable, but already nestled into the wings of his life, silent but there. 

Lancelot pulled away from the curb, and Harry flicked his suit straight, his long legs eating up the ground between himself and his destination; the need to see Michelle for himself overweighing saving Merlin from a teething little girl who could very well scream a house down if she was so inclined. 

Harry arrived at the hospital, and before he could find a way to slide past the rather elderly nurse that looked more fearsome than Eggsy without his morning coffee, she turned on him, flicking a glance up and down his suit and raising her brows, "Who're you here to see, luv?" Her voice did not imply the warmth her words were meant to, but Harry was just thankful that he wasn't being walked out of the room. 

The phone burst into a deafening ringing at the woman's elbow, and she looked to him, answering it almost before he could nod that he would wait. 

Harry wondered if he could get away with claiming someone else as a relative in order to slip away to see Michelle, but he wasn't given the chance to so much as peruse the pile of charts heaped on the desk in front of the woman before she was quickly replying and hanging up. 

"A Mrs. Michelle Unwin? Hm, yes? And the name of this person? Harry--Hart as in the rabbit, or Heart as in the organ? Ah. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Lieutenant. Have a safe journey." Harry was taken aback enough for the keen eyes of the woman to catch it, and she clucked at him, "Mister Hart, I take it? A Lieutenant Gary Unwin has just included you on the list of next-of-kin, I will show you to Mrs. Unwin's room." 

"G-Gary, he's coming?" Harry stuttered, nearly jogging to keep up with the diminutive, yet infinitely powerful woman. 

"He is in the process of securing leave, you are to make any decisions that Mrs. Unwin is unable to until he arrives."

She stopped abruptly, looking up at him almost expectantly, and Harry had been thrown through enough of a loop at the information that Eggsy would trust him with this enough that he almost didn't notice that he was standing in front of Michelle's room. 

He went in, his heart twisting in his throat at the black-and-blue stains flooding over Michelle's skin, her hair looking more lank than it had been in a long time. 

"Oh, Michelle." Harry sighed, striding over and sitting in the visitor's chair, taking one of her hands gently. "Is she going to be okay?" 

"She has a concussion, and there was some internal bleeding on top of the broken wrist and fractured ribs, but she was found quickly, and she's stable. She should be fine." 

Harry nodded, sitting back in the chair and watching as Michelle's chest rose and fell, feeling reassured from that alone. 

Left alone, Harry felt himself begin to fall into the panicked fear of loss that had kept him awake when Eggsy was in danger, or when Daisy was sick. 

He rang Merlin quickly, and when there was no screaming in the background he felt a little bit better, "I'm with Michelle now, is everything alright?" 

 _"Aye, we're battened down here. The wee one's nodded off in yer bed in a nest of pillows, as ye said, an' I've done everything I coul' to get Eggsy 'is leave. 'E's already being considered for Captain, Harry."_  

Harry felt a small, sad swell of pride. "He's put me on the list of next-of-kin until he can arrive here." 

_"May I suggest, then, that you get yer arse in gear an' tell 'im that you love 'im more than tea?"_

Harry sighed, "I doubt that would help any. He left because he thought I was lying to him, Merlin." 

 _"I still can't believe that you broke confidentiality for him, and he hasn't even told his best mate."_  

"I broke confidentiality for him because I knew he wouldn't. Dean Baker nearly killed Eggsy when he was fifteen, because some of Dean's boys saw Eggsy and I coming out of the police station kissing--none of them knew who I was, and Dean tried to beat it out of Eggsy--threatened his life with a butcher knife--so I took Eggsy away. My parents didn't care, but my Aunt Katherine was more than willing to help us. When she died a year later, she left me a small inheritance to get us a flat. When my parents died, I got enough money that once Eggsy convinced Michelle to leave Dean, we could get Daisy and her to a proper home. I paid the downpayment to Michelle's old apartment, and she kept up the rent once we found her work as a stenographer for doctor's notes."

 _"Tha's what this check made out to you from her is all about."_  

"Please do get out of my office, Merlin, you're no about to crack my home terminal and we would both get on much better without your sorry attempts." 

_"Somethin' about this collection of papers on the changes in psychology of the soldier from the first World War to Afghanistan tells me this is not actually your office."_

"Fuck off, old friend." Harry replied simply, and Merlin's throaty laughter made him feel a little better about hanging on. 

 _"What were 'is conclusions?"_  

"He always told me that war was a gentleman's game and a commoner's nightmare." Harry observed distantly, wishing the hand he was holding was that of another Unwin. 

_"Sounds abou' righ'."_

Harry returned to his house a few hours later, walking into Merlin rocking the baby in his arms to try to get Daisy to stop her crying. 

Harry simply held his arms out, taking Daisy to his chest and gently easing the cloth from her mouth, the cloth no longer helping. "Oh, my flower." Harry sighed, tucking her face into his neck as he danced slightly, holding onto her tiny fist. He thanked Merlin, shooing him to the guest bedroom with an easy denial for an offer of further assistance with the young one. 

As Merlin settled down, Harry turned his attentions to Daisy, laying her down for a moment and kissing over her face, his hands still practiced at finding her ticklish bits as she squirmed and giggled, kicking her legs. 

"My little lovely, you ought to come cuddle me. Thoughts?" Harry asked lightly, just out of reach of her grasping hands, and he smiled as she cooed and managed a gap-toothed smile of her own, reaching more for him. He chuckled as he caught her up in his hands, bringing her up to wriggle a bit before settling her against his chest, giving a small grunt as she caught one of his fingers and started teething with it. He carried them up the stairs, singing softly into her brown curls as he did, and smiling as she gurgled in response. Letting them into the bedroom, Harry laid her in the nest Merlin had made for her, pressing kisses to her little hands as she continued to reach for him. He smiled as he danced away, grabbing up his night things and singing to her as he changed in his walk-in closet. She babbled idly when he paused to get his shirt over his head, and he agreed with her idly, "Is that so? And where did you hear that?

"You're just as smart as your brother, my sweetheart. You'll kill them all in school, my darling. Have them wrapped around your little finger, utterly in love. I still remember the day your brother and I first met. 

"I had run away from my minder, and was in the wrong part of town. But I'd run into a school. I'd meant to go to the library, but I couldn't find it. I got lost, and ended up in a gymnasium. Your brother was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen. Leaping and flipping, more grace in his every breath than I'd seen in every move of a ballet. My father was headmaster of my school, and the only time I ever told him anything that he ever listened to was that if Eggsy wasn't given a scholarship to the school, I would run away every day until he would be. I don't think that that was what convinced him, though. I think he saw Eggsy's grace, too."

He'd lied down just out of the circle of pillows that kept Daisy cocooned and safe, offering one hand for her to play with as he talked to her in a gentle, soft voice. "I think he hated me at first," Harry mused, a hint of a smile pulling at his lips, "I was the reason he was taken from his friends. But he was older than he ever ought to have been, even then: he saw how much it meant to your mother, and made himself start by being civil. But being the son of the headmaster was not a blessing; and when the bullies caught up to me one day, Eggsy caught them. He taught them more in five minutes than my father ever could have given fifteen years, and from then on he was with me. Civility became friendship, and, finally, when I was sixteen and got a call from the Met that your brother had stolen my car, friendship became love. 

"He didn't want to see me, but I refused to press charges and told them I had let him take it, so they released him, and I was waiting. When I saw him walk out of that room, he wasn't the same Eggsy I knew and loved, and I had to do something to make sure that the look of being lost never happened again--so I kissed him. He nearly broke down in tears--we both did--but he kissed me back."

Daisy's eyes were fluttering open and shut, her cheeks bright pink as he laid his whole hand against her tiny chest. 

"I should never have agreed to become a Kingsman. That first night, I should have left, when they told me to write the information of my next-of-kin on a body bag." Harry whispered, his chest tight with his anger; his stupidity. 

Merlin returned to Kingsman late the next morning, needing to help Lancelot with a surveillance mission. Daisy played with Mr. Pickles on the floor with the very birthday present Harry had bought her months before; smiling happily as Harry called to the hospital, debating whether or not to bring Daisy with him that afternoon to see her mother. 

Weighted with books, Harry sat at Michelle's bedside with the baby in his arms and simply read, two days passing much the same way. 

Jamal reappeared on his doorstep, a gleam in his eye that made Harry hesitate, "'E's here. Eggsy's back, an' I though' if I took the baby home to 'im, you coul' surprise 'im an' all at hospital when 'e takes 'er later." 

"Did he send you to retrieve her?" 

"'E did, but 'e also looked to jus' 'bout be in tears for you takin' care'a her." 

Harry paused, looking up at Jamal from where he was bent retrieving the toys Merlin had sent, ostensibly to both test cognitive function and to create enough cacophony in the use of them that Harry had briefly entertained the notion of strangling the man on next sight. "He can't want to see me, Jamal--" 

"Look, bruv, I ain't nevver saw Eggsy li' tha'. 'E's fucking lonely wi'out you, jus' come to hospital an' see 'im, will you?" 

"I...I'll try." Harry agreed, handing over the baby and the small bag of things that had come with her. 

But the world rarely went smoothly, and the moment Harry set foot into the cab that afternoon, he knew this was going to be rather a determined wrinkle. 

It was undoubtedly a Kingsman cab, and as the insignia flashed up onto the screen in front of him, Harry pursed his lips. "To...the shop." Harry finally managed, looking up at the rearview mirror to see only his reflection; the paleness of his cheeks and the lingering sadness in his gaze as he let himself get swept away from what he wanted once more. 

Lancelot had been killed on the surveillance mission, trying to rescue a Professor Arnold that was not missing, and Harry drank the toast feeling as though the amber liquid was ash. 

The assignment was his now, and recruits for Lancelot were to be presented by seven the following night. Harry had liked Lancelot well enough, though Merlin was right to diagnose him as being a smarmy git. 

"Make sure your candidate is...appropriate, Galahad," Arthur advised, the gravity of his tone seeming to weigh in every slouching line of his aged and greying skin. 

"There's a reason why the aristocracy developed weak chins, Arthur." Harry replied simply, standing from the table with his heart half-set on seeing Eggsy while his mind demanded he do his duty before taking a risk he truly thought would not pan out. 

Merlin was waiting for him on the other side of the door, looking up over the rims of his glasses as Harry shut the old wooden door behind him. 

"I have a favour to ask ye." Merlin told him a low rush. 

"Yes, of course." Harry agreed immediately, and Merlin smiled just slightly, sending a misgiving down his spine. 

"Traditionally, the Merlin proposal is the plant that is meant to die during the first task," Merlin hadn't died during the first task; Harry had made sure he survived through three, which was a record in Kingsman, "but I have an actual candidate I would like to propose. Can I ask ye to propose the plant, Galahad? No one but ye and I will know who 'tis." 

"O-Of course. Why not tell me who you wish to propose, though?" 

Merlin smirked slightly, "Because no one is supposed to know who proposed whom but the Merlin charged with running the recruitment session." 

Harry still had that twinge of misgiving, but he relented, "I...I think I'll be going home." He convinced himself. "Send me everything you can find on our Professor Arnold through your means, I'll be reading up on his papers through the conventional ones. I expect you'll want me to meet the plant at some point before proposal, call me when it's been decided." 

"Aye, Galahad. Rest up. Lancelot was a good agent, for as much as the bugger left 'is glasses off. You'll need your wits well about ye." 

Harry nodded curtly, and before he could talk himself into doing otherwise, he headed home, assaulted at the front door with the lingering sweet smell of baby in the air and Mr. Pickles' unhappy moping at being without his playmate. 

Harry went into the room he had set up for Eggsy's thesis, looking around at the scattered papers that were in an order that could only be seen in Eggsy's mind. With trembling hands, Harry reached towards one of the heaps and gathered the paper in his fist, curling his fingers around it as though he could strangle the memory of Eggsy out of his mind if he tried hard enough. It was as though a dam burst within him as he turned to the bin and made himself drop the pages in, every single memory of Eggsy crowding in his mind's eye to be cherished before he made himself forget them all. 

Eggsy laying in the middle of this room, in nothing more than one of Harry's shirts and a pair of pants, bare legs crossed at the ankles as he chewed a pen cap and tore this information apart. Eggsy laughingly licking clean his fingers after Harry tried to neatly eat a cupcake piled so high with frosting it was nearly impossible. Holding Eggsy in the bath; reading to him as it rained heavily, going over notes; playing cricket with cakes in the middle of a school-wide food fight that Harry may well have started just to see Eggsy smile. 

By the time the haze of pain and self-hatred cleared, the papers were crumpled, ripped, and ruined, lying in the bin and beyond his better self's salvation. Feeling sick, Harry strode to the window, pushing it open to the damnably sunny day and wishing, with bile at the back of his throat, that it would torrent rain hard enough that he could drown in it. 

Shaking still as he stumbled slightly, stiff from the tension of every one of his muscles, Harry collapsed unceremoniously into his chair, hands reaching for his tablet as he made himself breathe around the urge to yell and scream. 

He hated himself for the fear keeping him from just getting in a cab to go see Eggsy, Daisy, and Michelle while he had the chance to. 

Hours later, long after visiting hours would be over, and after most of the rest of the city would be headed to bed, Harry received a text from a number he'd deleted, but would never fully forget. ' **Thank you.** '

Sighing, Harry sat back in his chair, willing the sun to come up and for this all to have been a dream; one in which he had learned his lesson. 

The truth of the matter was, when he'd been going through Kingsman training, he'd thought he'd be making Eggsy proud. 

Eggsy's father had left him with some strange wounds, but what Lee Unwin's greatest gift to his son had been was the sense of moral decency; the urge to make better, be it for his family, or for his country, or for the world. Eggsy was learning to become a doctorate in psychology, with focus on the aspects of what happened to a mind at war. That was the best Eggsy could do with his service: having Harry and his mother and his sister stopping him from making the same choices his father had made. Harry, however, for as much as becoming a human rights lawyer could have served, had never felt as though he was reaching his full potential until he was faced with a room filling with poison gas; and enough to know from Eggsy's studies just what to do in the face of it. 

Eggsy's decency was what had led him to save Harry from bullies; why, even with the threat of Dean hanging over him, he'd gone to visit his mother as much as he could after Harry had gotten him out of that house. Harry hadn't understood it then; but he understood it now. To Eggsy, there was nothing more important than love and family. And Eggsy had understood it that Harry's family wasn't so much family as it was a tenuous connection by the strains of biology, but leaving Eggsy--his family, his love, that was what had sealed his fate. 

The next day saw Harry running late to his meeting with Merlin and the plant recruit, his hangover settled in nicely behind his eyes and his mood resembling that of a bee-stung bulldog with aggression issues. 

"Galahad, this is Amelia, she works in the Berlin tech branch." 

"Pleasure," Harry muttered, shaking her hand quickly. 

"Amelia pointed out to me that should my actual candidate progress to the point of passing the second-to-last test, it may not be prudent to come forward as being the one who proposed them--" 

"I can play the part for you, Merlin." Harry agreed softly, "Though who is this proposal? I think I ought to meet them before the games begin." 

"Sorry, Galahad, but if they don't make it that far, I wouldn't have the information leaked of who it was." Merlin smiled winningly at Harry's narrowed eyes, and Harry crossed his arms over his chest. 

"I don't trust you." 

"Nor should you, sir." Amelia agreed brightly, laughing as she stepped past them into the hall leading to the recruit barracks. 

Merlin shrugged, "She has a point. Now, if you'll excuse me, your sorry excuse for timing has left the last recruit running very late because I asked he wait for me. Run along to the Dining Room, we're all to have a meal together, as we so rarely are actually in the same country to do so." 

"Well, good luck to your real candidate, Merlin." Harry sighed, shaking his head slightly. 

"Oh, Galahad, before you go, this is for the hangover." Merlin offered him a small pill, "If I may, I suggest avoiding the hair of the dog tonight if you intend on meeting Professor Arnold." 

"Yes, matron. Anything else?" 

"Just a reminder that if you continue to drink like a fish, I will be forced to put you into rehab and order a ninety-session in ninety days trip to the psychologists." 

Harry's eyes narrowed again, and Merlin shrugged slightly. 

"I do know that your normal alcohol intake before joining Kingsman was, at worst, three pints of Guinness in a weekend. It's an alarming trend." 

"I'm fine." 

"Do you know what 'fine' stands for?" Merlin asked with a wry twist to his mouth, "Freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional." 

Sighing and resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Harry moves to go join the other knights in the Dining Room back in the Savile Row shop. 

Under normal circumstances, dinner would be used to discuss training methods and abstractly attempt to brag about their proposals without giving away identifying information. However, Harry found himself instead focusing on keeping his silence as Arthur sprouted the pedigree of his proposal, his mind wandering to all the people he'd known with those same points of breeding and wealth that were not, in fact, worth a small pinch of rat shit. 

"Galahad, you've kept quiet all evening," Percival finally interjected, though it was privately. Harry turned his head to his mentor, a small smile pulling at his lips, "is it because you know I have another winner on my hands?" 

Percival was willowy and pale; her eyes huge and startlingly blue under the gentle tendrils of curly black hair. Harry had met her outside of a club he'd come to in order to help Eggsy wrangle his friend Ryan out of after an apparently hard break-up. She'd been surrounded by a rather nasty looking bunch, and Harry had spent years training in various forms of fighting while he was wasting away the time alloted him with Eggsy in his gymnastic training, so he felt stepping in when they started getting too rough was simply the most gentlemanly thing to do. That Harry's skills in fighting got Eggsy possessive, protective, and incredibly turned on was simply icing on the cake as he'd taken the men apart. 

Percival could have done it herself, easily, but Harry had only learned that in the twenty-four hours spent with his mentor, watching her take down an entire gang of men three times her size without so much as breaking a fingernail. 

"How's your boy doing? Eggsy was his name, wasn't it?" She asked, taking a delicate sip of her vodka and cranberry. 

"He...uh, he isn't mine any longer, I'm afraid." 

Percival's bright eyes pinned him, "And why would he allow such a silly thing like that to happen?" 

Harry swallowed, looking down at his barely picked at plate, "He...He didn't react well to my disappearance here. When I returned, and gave what answers I could, he thought I was lying to him; that I'd been with someone else." 

Percival's lips parted, her eyes growing dark and stern. "Oh, my dear boy..." she sighed, laying her hand over his arm, "he'll come back. I know he will." 

Harry snorted, fighting down the familiar trappings of his anger, "He's no reason to." 

"He has every reason to." She scolded softly, "If he loved you half of what you loved him, he will never be over you." 

"I didn't love him as well as he deserved, though, and for all the good it did, I might as well have been lying. I left him for nearly three months, Georgiana." 

"Do you remember what you told me when I first asked why you had learned to fight the way you have? You told me that you learned because you loved him, and you would do anything and everything in your power to protect him, from his step-father, or from some chav taking the piss because you loved each other. He knew that; he has to know that. You'll find each other again."

Harry snorted, a wry twist to his mouth, "Never took you to be a romantic, Georgie." 

"My dear boy, the things you don't know about me could fill libraries across the globe." 

It wasn't until Professor Arnold's head had exploded in front of him, effectively rattling his brain like a maracca, only for Harry to have to jump out of the window with a grenade in his wake, that Merlin began to question getting Percival to get Eggsy Unwin to meet him in fitting room one of the Savile Row shop. 

Percival was sending him an absurd number of pictures of herself, Michelle, and the baby; Michelle awake and Percival's volunteered services in helping her to recuperate an immense relief. _"You know, if I make it another couple decades, Miss Daisy would make a wonderful--"_  

"No." Merlin interjected, "She's not even _two_ , and if everything works out, the nepotism rumours will be rampant." 

 _"Oh, hush. Just because we've found the holy grail of Kingsman families does not nepotism make. Especially if I'm the one proposing her."_  

"You're the one that started it." 

_"With Harry? He's marrying into it, doesn't count."_

Merlin took a deep breath, "Let's bloody hope so." 

 _"Harry would fall over himself for the chance, and Eggsy went into the Marines just to get away from the memory."_  

"I think Harry would disagree with you on that count, but Harry is out of his fucking mind if he thinks the boy doesn't love him." 

 _"Well, a Kingsman has to be at least a little bit bonkers."_  

"True." 

 _"How's my girl doing?"_ Percival asked, and Merlin could just barely hear her playing with the baby on the other end of the line. 

"Brilliantly, of course. Though I have to say, Eggsy rather impressed me by figuring out it was a two-way mirror. Managed to punch through it underwater."

 _"That is rather impressive. And the others?"_  

"Well, Amelia is on her way back to Berlin, Eggsy is already having trouble with the bloody old boys, but Roxanne and he, I suspect, will thrash them soundly."

_"Lovely. Are they making friends?"_

"Yes, it's rather sweet."

_"Has Eggsy figured out that Harry's a Kingsman?"_

"The second I started telling him about it, I expect. He's got a good enough poker face, but his eyes have a tell. We'll have to make sure that we can work that out if he gets far enough into training. D'you know, he picked a bloody pug as his pup, thinking it was a bulldog?"

Percival snorted a laugh, _"Poor boy."_

"With Harry in the infirmary, I do somewhat suspect that they'll come face-to-face sooner rather than later."

 _"Oh, that'll be messy."_  

"Not as messy as it would be if I waited to tell him until he was meant to spend twenty-four hours with the boy." 

_"True, but I do not envy you that particular reveal. Even taking into account that I am helping to potty train."_

Merlin snorted, "Good luck, Percival."

_"And to you, Merlin."_

Merlin's door had opened and shut almost silently enough that he'd thought it a trick of the tele, but he knew better when he heard the quiet draw of breath. "Your sister is doing quite well with Percival, and your mother is comfortable." 

"H-Harry...Harry is _here_ , in this building?" Eggsy asked quietly, "In the infirmary?" 

"Yes, he is. He is currently in a coma, though the cause of that remains to be seen." Merlin turned to face the young man, seeing the fire in his eyes, "Would you like to see him?" 

Eggsy didn't reply, but Merlin moved to the door anyway, holding it open for the young man and letting him step through with the quick, sure way he strode when on a mission. Merlin let him stride all the way to the infirmary ward before giving any kind of guidance, letting him in to the correct room and bringing up Harry's chart on his clipboard.

"We're not entirely sure what happened, unforntunately his glasses were only connected to his secure home server, not to ours--" Merlin was cut off as Eggsy plucked the clipboard from his hands, accessing the link from Kingsman to Harry's home server and biting his lip as the prompt of a password came up, glancing from Harry to the screen and back before taking a deep breath and typing something in. It unlocked, much to Merlin's astonishment, and Eggsy handed the board back without looking away from Harry, something changed in his eyes. 

"It's the date we met." Eggsy explained, voice hollow. 

"Eggsy," Merlin began, unsure of how to go on, "it's really just a matter of time before he wakes. Just...do your best on the training; do 'im proud." 

"Merlin," Eggsy started, half-turning, but still unable to look away from the man on the bed, "if...if you can, if there's anything I can do, please--let me help." 

"Of course, Eggsy. For now, though, the best thing you can do for him is to work hard and do the best you can." 

Eggsy nodded, and Merlin took it as his cue to leave, catching a glimpse of Eggsy nearing his unconscious lover and pressing a delicate kiss to his forehead, one hand holding onto Harry's. 

Eggsy sat heavily in the chair beside the bed, staring at Harry with a lump in his throat. "You fucking wanker." He managed, voice choked, "You were fucking telling me the truth. D'you know wha'? I woulda believed you if you'd just shown me that your umbrella could fucking kill people." Eggsy shook his head, leaning forward on the chair, "It's not fucking fair, though, is it? You're always the one fucking standing 'tween me and being a fucking failure. I 'eard wha' you did to Dean's lot. An' Percival fucking apologized to me for proposin' ya; for whiskin' ya off in the nigh' like some thief." Eggsy shook his head again, "Bu' this was it, wasn't it? This's wha' you're meant ta do.

"Jus' do me a fucking favour, Harry. It's the only one I'll ask for for the rest of our fucking lives. Wake up." Giving Harry's hand a squeeze, Eggsy leaned over the side of the bed and kissed his cheek, willing himself not to cry. 

Almost a month later, Harry did wake. His beard, though well-groomed, was going to drive him mad, and his hair was long enough that he felt utterly disgusting, but the information of what had transpired had been accessed from his home server, and he knew that, for as good as Merlin was, he wasn't that good. 

Eggsy didn't bother to knock, and Harry's heart caught in his chest, "Still don't know how to knock, I see." 

"You know me. I only knock when I'm casin' to rob a place." Eggsy replied. A small dog was at his feet, and Harry smiled. 

"How's his training coming?" 

"Sit." Eggsy ordered, and Harry fought down a smile as the pup immediately obeyed. Eggsy smirked slightly, and a pillow-talk conversation about the fact that Eggsy would never be an enforcer surfacing for them both. "Merlin told me you wanted to see me?" 

"I'm proud of you, making the final six." Harry murmured gently, nodding to the screen with each of the final six candidates' information displayed. "Are you alright?"

Eggsy gave a short nod, "You come out of a month-long coma and you ask if I'm a'right?" 

"I know how I am, Eggsy; my concern is how you are." Harry replied simply. 

"I am...fuck, Harry, I don't know how I am. I barely know _where_ I am, at this point, and you...you were fucking..." Eggsy was working himself up into a panic, and Harry took two strides forward, wrapping Eggsy in his arms. 

Eggsy fell into the embrace, and Harry was so thankful for that, his hand threading through the hair at the back of Eggsy's head, his face half-turned into his neck. "I-I know...this doesn't change...that I left. And feel free to tease me about having all the words in the world but not being able to have any satisfactory enough to articulate how truly sorry I am, but--oh, fuck, I've missed you." 

Eggsy brought in a gasp of air, clinging tighter to Harry, "I missed you so fucking much, Harry. An' I'm sorry I called you a liar--" 

"Eggsy, were our roles reversed, given a story like that, I doubt I would've been able to trust it, either." 

Eggsy let out a sobbing laugh, and Harry tightened his own grip, unwilling to let go even a little. 

"If you're here, who's taking care of Daisy?" Harry finally asked. 

"Percival." Eggsy sniffed, his fingers going back to the too-long ends of Harry's hair and tangling into them. "She an' mum are doin' great, accordin' to Merlin." 

"I think I owe them both quite a large drink for bringing you here." 

"Yea, well, we'll jump off that bridge when we come to it." 

Harry laughed softly, slowly convincing himself to release Eggsy. "You got into my private server." 

"You really shoul' think 'bout changin' your passwords, bruv." 

There was a knock at the door, and Harry pointed to it, giving Eggsy a look that had him snorting around the tears in his eyes. 

"Come in." 

Merlin pushed inside, glancing at Eggsy with a wry twist to his mouth before turning his attentions to Harry. "I was hoping to discuss what happened with Professor Arnold. You're dismissed, Eggsy." 

"No, he isn't. He can stay. Might teach us a thing or two. He was interning with a detective inspector, after all." 

"Only thing he taught me was how _not_ to find my bloody boyfriend." Eggsy grumbled, leaning back against the end of the hospital bed with his hands in his pockets, Merlin standing between Harry and Eggsy in a bid to have at least a smidgen of Harry's attention. 

"In any case, this is the footage we pulled up from your server, Harry," Merlin brought it up, and Eggsy's jaw dropped as he watched the man who Harry was berating explode spectacularly. 

"Tha's fucking rank, Harry!" 

"That...was not my doing." Harry replied simply. 

"No, it wasn'." Merlin agreed, bringing up a close-up of a the man's neck, where something was superheating enough to turn the skin around it molten orange. "So far as we can tell, what we're seeing here is an implant that, when triggered by an outward signal, superheated to the point of...well, combustion."

"Did my equipment pick up on the signal?" 

"Yes, an' it traces back to the Valentine Corporation. Unfortunately, there are thousands of computers that it could have come from within IP addresses registered to them." 

"Valentine's a bloody genius." Eggsy muttered, and both Harry and Merlin turned to him. "Wha'? Have neivver of you seen his announcement?" Eggsy plucked up the clipboard from Merlin's hands, pulling up the press conference to which he was referring. 

Merlin took his clipboard back in a huff only to have it then swiped by Harry, watching as it was rewound only to pull up a close-up shot of Valentine's assistant's neck, and a scar that looked rather like Professor Arnold's. 

"We may have just shortened our list of suspects within the Valentine camp." Harry mumbled. 

"It looks like we're in luck, Valentine is having a gala dinner in four days. But I have to warn you, Harry, the number of strange kidnappings like the Professor's are going up, and not everyone is being returned." 

"Then we ought to make my alias someone worth kidnapping, hm?" 

"Hold the fuck on." Eggsy interjected, taking a stride forward to face both men, his lips pursed and his features a mask of 'challenge-me-and-die'. "'Ow do you expect the chip was bloody activated when you was there, Harry?! You go in, and 'e's already fucking made you!" 

"We don't know that--" Merlin began, but one look from Eggsy and he cut off, examining. "You might actually be right." 

"Thanks ever so much!" Eggsy threw out, turning his attention directly to Harry, "You go in there, an' they make you, then wha'? Merlin and Percival'll have done all this wit' me for nothin'! You don' know if they know wha' you look like, or what you bloody sound like, an' we both fucking know that your voice ain't one easily fuckin' forgot." 

"He has a point." Merlin muttered, and Harry looked over at his friend with an expression akin to watching a horn grow out of his forehead. 

"Eggsy, this is part of the job--" 

"'Arry, so help me god, if you think you was gonna go in there wit' the fuckin' target already on ya, I will beat sense into you!" 

"Boys!" Roxy was standing at the doorway, the door swinging shut behind her, with her hair something of a mess and her eyes huge and shocky. "If you are quite finished, Eggsy, I came to tell you that our next exercise will be starting shortly. As for you two: Eggsy makes a very good point, you do not want Harry to be kidnapped immediately, you want him to be able to fly under the radar well enough to get in, get information, and get back out. What I'd suggest," Roxy paused for emphasis, looking from Merlin to Harry, "is to find someone already on the list and outfit them with a Kingsman escort." 

Looking back and forth between the two men, Roxy took a deep breath, nodding once, and offered her arm to Eggsy, who took it with barely contained giggles. 

"Merlin, sir, we're ready when you are." Roxy called back as she and Eggsy walked out of the infirmary room. 

"Honestly, between her and Percival, I'm beginning to fear for the continued survival of the male of the species." 

"So long as they continue to make friends in men like Eggsy," Harry replied, voice just as tight, "we will make it." 

"There aren't many men like Eggsy out there." 

"No, there aren't." 

Harry opted out of watching Eggsy jump from a perfectly good plane with Merlin within strangling distance; instead visiting the in-house barber in the Savile Row shop, his tablet linking him to the same feed Merlin was seeing; hearing Eggsy coax Roxy out of the plane only to have them all descend into panic as Merlin brought out the challenge of it: that one of them would not have a parachute. 

This had been the second task for Harry; one that he and Merlin had gotten each other through much the same way Eggsy and Roxy ended up doing, but as Eggsy and Roxy screamed their way to the ground, Eggsy the one without the parachute, Harry congratulated himself on the foresight not to allow himself to play witness to this while he could reach over and strangle Merlin.

Merlin activated his camera in the Kingsman glasses as he met the recruits, and Harry relaxed ever-so-slightly as he saw Roxy and Eggsy struggle upright as the others gathered, everyone but Eggsy wrestling with their chutes. 

Eggsy's outburst about his being chosen as the 'gimp' got Harry agreeing with him silently, lips pursed. But as Merlin motioned him forward with a deadly note to his voice, Harry's hands tightened, nervous for the boy he loved. _"You might want to take that chip off your shoulder, I am, after all, as much a friend of Harry's as anyone."_ With that, Merlin grabbed the ripcord on Eggsy's chute; the wind sending Eggsy gusting backwards like a ragdoll.

"Thank you, Merlin." Harry sighed, laying one long hand over his eyes under the glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

 _"Li' I'd bloody give 'im back jus' to fuckin' kill 'im."_ Merlin snorted as he strode back towards the Merlin offices, leaving Eggsy to fend for himself against the wind and his chute. 

Harry sighed, and allowed himself to keep his hand over his eyes for the rest of his haircut, trying to will his head and his heart silent as his brain tried to convince his heart not to get their hopes up that Eggsy would choose to stay. A tearful reunion did not a mended break make, but it was, at the very least, a start. And that Eggsy had been so adamant about not allowing Harry to go into Valentine's on the off chance he had already been made was enough to give his heart fuel to overpower his mind: one did not scold someone they cared nothing about. 

This time, Harry asked for Eggsy through Roxy, and the girl's dark eyes gave him an appraising once-over, one brow ticking upwards, "You break his heart again, and Kingsman or not, whatever I decide to do to you will be the most unpleasant thing you will ever go through."

Harry grinned reflexively at the thought that here was a friend in which Eggsy could have the utmost trust and respect: someone to finally deserve him. And, as if she heard that thought go through his mind, she smirked, calling for Eggsy as she half-turned to the dormitory. 

The unscrupulous little git that Harry had the sneaking suspicion Arthur had proposed could be heard trying to get a look past the mostly-closed door to see who it was summoning Eggsy yet again, but with a simple word in Dutch, Roxy's poodle had him flat on his back with her teeth at his throat. The swearing was as unimaginative as the one spewing it, and when Eggsy stepped out smirking and trying to hide it, Harry fell in love with him a little more. 

"I...I know it's rather forward of me, but I was hoping for the opportunity for us to get dinner together: to talk? I spoke to Merlin, you won't be taking another exercise tonight, and I--"

"Yes." Eggsy cut him off, something in his eyes edging towards softness. "You'll be goin' to make nice wit' whoever's on the guest list, I 'spose, an' I...I wanna talk 'bout this 'fore I think 'bout that."

Harry blinked, "Eggsy, if you were right in thinking me made, and you've done damn well of convincing Merlin and I that I have been, it will not be me attending the party." 

Eggsy rocked on the balls of his feet slightly, looking somewhere between shamefaced, delighted, and surprised. 

"Percival will be leaving Daisy in my care for the night," Harry mentioned softly, and the mention of his little sister had Eggsy quietly glowing with a need to see her. "I rather thought you and I could break a few rules and get you the fuck out of here to come see her. And don't think it hasn't escaped my notice that you got into my home server from one of the ones in Merlin's office and have been using it to send your mother reassurances--Why the utter fuck didn't I think of that?"

Eggsy snorted, reaching out to rub a non-existent wrinkle from Harry's jacket with the back of his knuckles, eyes intent on his fingers, "Wouldn'a worked anyway: Kingsman wasn't set up to the home server 'til you got in, was it?"

The urge to touch Eggsy; to take him in his arms and press a hundred kisses to his mouth, was making Harry's chest feel tight, the self-restraint it was taking more than he really had when it came to the lovely, brilliant, perfect man in front of him. Eggsy, fidgeting and unable to meet Harry's eye, seemed to feel the same, but Harry knew what thin ice he was standing on, and knew that if he read this wrong; if he were to take Eggsy into his arms and ravish, the consequences would be dire. "I'm sorry, Eggsy. It's worth next to nothing, but there it is. I am so sorry, I regret what happened every damn day." 

Eggsy looked up at him, the look in his eyes so like one that had started them down this road. Eggsy had loved him as desperately as Harry loved Eggsy, but he was determined not to act on it: not to try to force the issue. Eggsy had always let Harry lead, and that fateful day, Harry had led him into a kiss that had their toes curling and hands shaking with nerves and the delicate, ephemeral promise of everything that they wanted. 

Eggsy bit his lips, looking over Harry before a decision seemed to solidify behind the determined glint in Eggsy's eyes. His broad hand caught the lapel of Harry's jacket, yanking Harry closer as he swung up onto his tip-toes, mouth right next to Harry's ear, the soft tone of a line of communication activated sending Harry's arms, startled, around Eggsy's waist, "Merlin? Be a bruv and have some trouble with the security cams, would you?" Eggsy whispered, and Harry heard a telltale click before the line went dead again. 

Turning his face into Harry's neck, Eggsy just seemed content to breathe him in and be held, and Harry felt dizzy for how happy the proximity made him. Soft lips pressed just above Harry's collar, a nose that somehow always managed to be freezing tracing along the line of his jaw until Eggsy had coaxed himself away from the warmth and the scent of Harry and looked up into his eyes. 

"Always such a fucking gentleman, Harry. What'd I tell you the first time we kissed?" 

Harry swallowed, blinking as his shaking hands bunched in Eggsy's trainee jumpsuit. "I never have to ask to kiss you, you'll always want to kiss me." 

Eggsy nodded, just a tiny flinch of a movement, and Harry's hand spread out over his back, urging Eggsy back up onto his toes as he bent slightly to finally have his mouth to Eggsy's. 

It was certainly not their first kiss, but for all it had the wild desperation to climb into another and simply be lost, it also had the slow coaxing of a need to know more. They were not the same men they had been before, and they needed to learn each other all over again. 

Harry didn't release his clutching hold of Eggsy against his chest after the kiss ended, and Eggsy seemed more than alright with that: breathing him in and pressing warm, loose kisses to any skin he could reach. "I fucking love you, you bastard. I always fucking have, and I always fucking will." 

"Do you have any idea how difficult it is to refrain from taking you away right now? From finding somewhere safe and quiet and not letting you out of my arms again? I will _never_ let you go again, Eggsy. I can't." 

"How the fuck do you think I feel?" Eggsy laughed, though it was dangerously close to a sob. "Seein' you lyin' in that bed in a fuckin' coma, Harry!" 

Harry pressed a soft, barely-there kiss to Eggsy's lips, running his hands through the carefully coiffed hair that had never used to be so gelled. "Why?" Harry asked softly, nodding to the hair. 

"'Cause any time I touched it..." Eggsy told him, cheeks bright. 

He caught the sadness that came over those incredible brown eyes, and Eggsy's hands fisted against his sleeves, one shake of his head all he managed before his body was pressing back into Harry's until their lips were a crush together. "I'm sorry, Eggsy...I'm so bloody sorry..." 

Eggsy shook his head, "Stop." One hand caught Harry's before the man disengaged entirely, just by instinct. He turned his head to that hand and kissed callouses Harry hadn't had before, the grip of a gun building them up. "Take me to dinner, and then figure out a story for Merlin to feed Charlie on why I don't come back here tonight." 

Harry shook his head, but Eggsy ticked a brow upwards, something devious playing at the corners of his mouth. 

"Yes, I know it's too soon for sex, Harry, you old fart, but after what we've been through, I damn well think I deserve to have you hold me while we talk all night." 

Harry snorted, not trusting that assertion an inch, but Eggsy's grin was everything he'd ever wanted. "I'll find you some clothes besides this, then, hm?" 

"Or we can simply go home, and be naked." 

 _There_ it was, and Harry couldn't help his snort of laughter, bending to steal another kiss. "I love you, Eggsy." 

"I know." Eggsy replied, rubbing a lock of hair between forefinger and thumb with a smile, small and sad. 

"Merlin will come back in a couple hours." Eggsy bopped a nod, taking in Harry's face like he was trying to commit it to memory. 

"I'll be waiting." 


	2. Loves Like This

Ultimately, Harry didn't have a good excuse to offer Merlin to relate to Charlie Hesketh--because, really, he was the only one who wasn't aware of what was going on, and Roxy undoubtedly knew before either Eggsy or Harry did that they would end up stealing time alone together. 

As they made it towards the house, Eggsy quietly tracing Harry's hands as they sat in the back of the Kingsman cab, Harry didn't know how to wrap his head around how entirely he owed Percival and Merlin for bringing Eggsy back to him. There was no good way for him to show how much it meant, either. He knew, at least, what steps he needed to take never to allow Eggsy and he to fall apart as they had; knew that he needed to show in every breath that left his body how completely he was devoted to this man. 

"So, Percival will be headed into the enemy camp." Eggsy tried for small talk as they sat in the city traffic, the awkward air of it pressing at them both. 

"Yes, and while I would love nothing more than to be a sniper with a good line of fire outside of the event, someone needs to babysit Daisy, and I'm not sure that we can excuse two nights without you eventually returning to the barracks." 

Eggsy ducked his head, torn between being relieved that Harry wouldn't be doing something dangerous and being guilty that it was his fault that Harry wasn't doing the full extent of his job.

Harry cleared his throat, shifting in his seat, "Do you know...I still always bloody run late." He looked up at Eggsy, catching his eye and holding his gaze with a small, wry twist to his lips. 

"So it weren't me keepin' you abed 'til noon." Eggsy smiled in return, warming to the familiar teasing that lay between them. 

"Apparently not, no." Harry steeled himself, then pressed through, "I suppose I owe you for those nights I kicked you out of bed..." 

Eggsy's eyes glittered as he took a sip of his wine, amusement and happiness making him damn near glow, "Have to collect on that sometime soon. I reckon a week in bed ought to do it." 

Harry smiled in return, "I believe that can be arranged." 

They arrived at the house to find Percival and Daisy having broken in, Daisy a cooing angel as she and the highly trained, insanely deadly spy played with soft plastic teething blocks. Eggsy lit up at the sight of his sister, and Percival shared a smile with Harry over his shoulder as he went in to sweep Daisy up, nibbling at her chubby fingers and holding her tight. 

"I think in a decade or two we'll have another Kingsman." Percival commented, her rich, lilting voice full of the sardonic edge that Harry had come to know her best for. 

"Nah, this one's goin' into politics so she can rule the world." Eggsy answered, smiling at Percival and offering his hand, "Thank you, by the way. For...for everything." 

"Oh, honey. You're not the one that owes me a drink." Percival assured him, looking to Harry, "A very big, very expensive drink." 

"'F she's too much ova trouble--" 

"Not why he owes me the drink, dear." Percival assured him, patting Eggsy on the arm idly while she made faces at the baby in his arms. "But, if I manage to bag my mark tonight, maybe I'll just play my cards right and end up a kept woman bathing in pearls and sleeping naked on thousand-count silk sheets rolling in money." 

"Now _that_ is an image, Perce." Harry commented tightly, his brows going up. "And when you get bored enough to start shooting people?" 

Percival grinned, her dimples showing as she did. "I'll have an estate worth of grounds to hide the bodies." 

"You have this worryingly planned." Eggsy noted, then turned his attention to his sister, "You better not be takin' notes, young miss, or I'll 'ave to find you a tall, tall tower and lock you away." 

He blew a raspberry to her cheek, and the baby shrieked in delight, reaching for Harry next. 

"In any case, thank you, Percival," Harry murmured, deftly taking the baby without mucking up her dress, "and happy hunting tonight." 

"You'll sit on the night-of as well, yes?" 

"Of course. What do you reckon the chances of me getting Eggsy out are?" 

"With that little fucker Arthur picked? Nil. If we drugged him, perhaps...I'll have to see what I have on hand at home, though. Something...gastronomically pyrotechnic, perhaps?" 

Eggsy lit up even more, grinning at Percival and then over at Harry, "She's good with Daisy, dangerous as an angry alley cat, and I think she migh' be the only person alive who can out-scowl you, bruv; I'm keepin' 'er." 

Percival laughed, winking at him before bouncing forward to press a peck to his cheek then the baby's. She gave Harry a little finger wave, dashing out the door with a laughing, "Ta!" 

Eggsy walked towards the kitchen, hesitating in the doorway with Daisy comfortably in his arms, and Harry silently trailed him that far, reaching so that he could wrap his arms around Eggsy, cooing at Daisy over his shoulder. "Go play with her, Eggsy; we both know she won't sleep until you wear her out." 

Eggsy half-turned, catching Harry's cheek on one side while Daisy pressed a wet, smacking kiss to the other, and Harry laughed as Eggsy cracked up, snorting gently as he nuzzled at Harry's jaw. "I take it we'll be ordering in then," he murmured sardonically, carrying the little one out of the room with a gentle sway to his hips, dancing lightly while Daisy babbled. 

Harry turned to his kitchen, a strange anxiety in his chest at the prospect of proving to Eggsy that he had, actually learned to cook. 

Putting Daisy to bed and sitting down to their dinner felt like they hadn't been apart at all, Harry easily taking her for her story time while Eggsy poured the wine and got the table ready, listening while he finished up with a soft smile on his face. Harry rose, laying Daisy in her cocoon of pillows on his bed. He invaded Eggsy's space, tipping his chin up and claiming his mouth. Eggsy groaned, melting into him, clinging to his arms with a tight grip. Harry flicked at the zipper of Eggsy's training jumpsuit, breaking the kiss to leave Eggsy panting into his neck, his arms not willing to let an inch between them, "There's a sweater and trousers in your size. I'll dish dinner, and you can join me downstairs." Eggsy nodded, his cheeks a wonderful rose as he did, stealing a loose kiss before Harry managed to convince himself to let go and do what needed doing. 

"So, 'til I'm in, I reckon your missions are all classified..." Eggsy began as they sat down to their meal, "what else you been up to?" 

There was no answer for that, because Harry had subsisted for almost a year and a half by simply looking in on Eggsy and going from mission to mission faster, even, than James had before he'd died. And it was shameful to him, but at the same time, he knew intimately that getting past that had been a damn impossibility. "Nothing so interesting as managing to get on the cusp of captaincy in under the mandatory three years. I mean, honestly, Eggsy, how?" 

It was not as smooth a diversion as Harry would have hoped if the glint of knowing that flitted through Eggsy's gaze was any indication, but Eggsy let sleeping dogs lie, "I finished basic in an actual, literal record time, and mosta my squad treat me like captain anyway." 

"They put you towards the Special Boat Service, and you're better than their captains. Why am I not surprised?" Harry murmured fondly. 

Eggsy hid his blush behind his wine, proud of himself for the pride in Harry's gaze. "What about you, though? You actually learned to cook?" 

The disbelief in Eggsy's tone had Harry glaring at him for a moment before he broke into the cheesiest smile possible, not even really trying to feign innocence. "No, you're going to be horribly poisoned and die." 

"You burnt cereal, Harry," Eggsy reminded him impishly, "Can't blame a guy for makin' sure 'e won't be dyin'." 

"I can and I shall, Eggsy, I never claimed to be fair." 

Eggsy threw a mocking pout his way, and Harry smiled at it, feeling more at home than he had in the two years he had done little more than ghost through the empty halls of his house--because it was certainly no home without Eggsy's laughter ringing through the silence. 

"How did Merlin get you into the shop, anyway?" Harry asked, pouring Eggsy another glass of wine and finding himself without the need to drown out his sorrows. 

"Percival showed up at mum's room, told me tha' if I ever wanted to see you again, I'd go to meet Merlin." Eggsy shrugged, "I recognized 'er, y'know? That night wiv Ry, and she's fucking hard to forget." 

Harry smiled, shaking his head, "Yes, she is. Especially when you see what she's really capable of." 

Eggsy regarded his glass as though building himself up for the next question, and Harry waited patiently, "'S trainin', isn't it? Your fightin', Percival's...You're all trained--"

"I've seen your shooting specs, Eggsy, you're just as trained as I am." 

Eggsy shook his head softly, "I told you I shoulda gotten us ballroom dancin' classes." 

Harry snorted a laugh that nearly caused a swallow of water to come out of his nose, and he looked at Eggsy with accusation in his eyes, "You really think that seeing the two of us on the dancefloor isn't just as deadly as you with a sniper's rifle?"

Eggsy smiled, wide and predatory, "At least if it'd gone li' that, they wouldn't've tried to take you away." 

Harry regarded Eggsy, taking in all that had happened, and though he regretted what it had done to them, he could not regret the end result, "Tell me about basic." 

Eggsy regarded him with a dispassion in his eyes that made Harry's hackles rise, "You were keepin' tabs on me, why don' you tell me?" 

"Because while I know the outline of the stories, Eggsy, you're the only one who can paint in the details." Harry answered simply. 

Eggsy let himself sigh, regarding his glass as he fiddled with the stem, "This isn't what I was imagining, Harry. Never thought I'd be sittin' 'ere again." 

"Is it so bad, sitting here?" Harry asked quietly, the hurt in his voice damnable. 

"I used to dream 'bout comin' back an' havin' a life to rub in your face." Eggsy told him, blatant and unabashed by the wish to prove he'd moved on. "I loved you so fuckin' much, Harry. 

"You have to know that I love you just as much, Eggsy, I always have." Harry replied, his voice barely making it past a whisper. "I could never--the idea of...of being unfaithful to you...you have to know that I _couldn't_. I never would." 

Eggsy put down his fork pensively, licking his lips before he regarded Harry once more, "I trusted you, Harry. And for months, you were gone without a word. I understand...'course I do, now. But it doesn' change the fact tha' you thought tha' was the righ' thing to do." 

Harry put down his own fork, regarding Eggsy and taking a deep breath as he took in the expectancy in his eyes, "When Percival came to me with the offer of a proposal, I'd been considering what to do with my life for a while, with no good options. You," Harry's eyes were brimming with the respect and adoration he felt for Eggsy, "have always known your way. You had it set out before you even when we were young. And you were the only thing that had ever felt like the answer to the question of the future for me. When Percival told me about Kingsman, about what Kingsman did...it felt like everything I'd wished for. A chance to make you proud of me; a chance to put my skills to good use and to give us both a better world in which to live together. I wanted to make as much of a difference for you as your father had, Eggsy. I wanted to make you proud to call me yours. Before Kingsman came along, I was adrift in every aspect but you. No job, no prospects, no want for any of it because I wasn't aware that what I knew of the world wasn't all there was." 

"I was proud of you, Harry." Eggsy interrupted him gently, his throat tight, "You never 'ad to...I was so proud to say you were mine." 

Harry nodded, because a part of him had known that, even as he'd gone through the training, "But, really, Eggsy, should you have been? I was nothing--I was nothing but an inheritance and boredom--" 

"You took care of me!" Eggsy burst, his cheeks flushing with his vehemence, "You saved me from fuckin' Dean and bein' nothin' more than jus' some fucking chav! Took me 'way from bein' nothin'. Kept me an' Daisy an' mum safe, for fucking years!" 

Harry was around the table, pulling Eggsy into his arms and breathing him in before he could stop himself, "Eggsy, you did that. I just gave you an opportunity. You're the one that had to make anything of it." 

Eggsy clutched at his back, pulling him so close that Harry was very nearly having trouble breathing. "I love you, you daft sod." Eggsy cried into his collar, and Harry hushed him, running his long fingers through Eggsy's hair. 

Urging them both upright, Harry led them into the living room, settling down with Eggsy so close that there was barely a seam of air between them. "Why did you let me ruin you?" Harry finally asked, trying to swallow down his heart from his throat. 

"You were the reason I was there to begin with." Eggsy answered easily, "I didn' want it if you weren't there wi' me." 

Harry kissed Eggsy's forehead, pulling him until his head laid against Harry's chest, the position one so painfully familiar that Harry needed to only close his eyes for the intervening years to disappear from between them. Eggsy sighed, burying his face into Harry's chest and forcing himself to relax into the man, aching for things to be as they had been. "I have missed you every day we have ever spent apart, Eggsy. I have no right to ask it of you; no right to wish for it, but if you were to trust me again, if you were to give me your heart, I would lay down my life to make sure it was never broken again."

Eggsy didn't reply, breathing him in and clutching him close. Harry cleared his throat, threading his fingers through the hair at Eggsy's nape, making his breathing even and steady so that the tension written in every line of Eggsy's shoulders would relax. 

From the bedroom, Harry heard the telltale fussing of an Unwin waking, and for just a moment, he held Eggsy as tight as he could without breaking them both, pressing a kiss to his hair before he had to force himself to let go and get up. 

Eggsy trailed behind him, looking tired and soft in a way that made Harry wish he could devour the curve of his mouth and bar the world from spinning so that the morning would never reach its fingers into their moments together. 

Eggsy came up behind him as Harry lifted his sister from the bed, cooing softly as he held her tight to his chest. Eggsy's arms wrapped around Harry and Daisy both from where he was burying his head between the blades of Harry's shoulders. "I love you...too much, Harry. I always have loved you too much. It feels like I'd break the world before letting you go." Harry turned his head, and Eggsy rocked up on his toes, kissing Harry over his shoulder as Daisy gurgled and hummed back towards sleep against Harry's chest. 

It was only a few hours after they fell asleep holding one another on Harry's couch that Eggsy found himself having been roofied and tied to train tracks in the name of finding out the name of his organization and who Harry Hart was. 

"FUCK YOU!" Eggsy bellowed with every molecule of his body, closing his eyes and sending prayers to Harry, Daisy, and his mum: he wished he had had more time with them, but if it was betraying Harry and losing him forever, or sacrificing his life for the man he loved enough to stop the world, it was no choice to make. 

When he opened his eyes to find that the train tracks had lowered him to safety and completed themselves over him, Eggsy felt the bitter burn of adrenaline, and he wanted to laugh in relief. 

Harry stood over him, and Eggsy had to physically bite his tongue to stop himself from ripping into him. 

"You did brilliantly...I knew you would." 

"The others?" Eggsy managed, and he could tell that Harry knew he was mentally tearing Harry apart. 

"Roxanne performed admirably...Charlie's up next: want to watch?" There was the glint in Harry's eye, telling Eggsy he knew he was safe with having given just that one offer. 

"Yeah, alrigh'." Eggsy groaned after a beat, gesturing to his bound wrists and ankles, waiting for Harry to cut him loose. 

That Hesketh had been a screaming disaster surprised exactly no one, and then Harry and Percival were told they would have twenty-four hours with their charges before the final test, and Eggsy felt his ears colour red at the thought of what they would have spent those twenty-four hours doing just a few years ago. 

"Roxy and I will be going to that gala with our dear Prime Minister." Percival informed them, smirking, "Why not spend those hours with your real proposer, Eggsy, and run our op?" 

"'Cause if their blue balls get any more blue, we're likely to have some sort of ice age as a consequence." Merlin replied primly, "Now shoo, the both of ye, and get some damn information I can work wi'!" 

Roxy was laughing silently at Eggsy as she and Percival nodded and left, but Eggsy could not be assed to care.

"As for you two, Daisy will be with me tonigh'." Merlin told them, raising a brow over his specs, "Any complaints, see Michelle." 

Eggsy coloured even more deeply, glancing at Harry out of the corner of his eye, but his face was inscrutable, damn him. "Shall we?" Harry offered Eggsy his hand, the point of contact immediately used to pull Eggsy close as they moved to the train back to London. "I'm sorry I couldn't warn you: when I went through this challenge, it was much earlier in training, and it wasn't a train." 

Eggsy cocked his brow, knowing that he really didn't want to know. 

"Bound and weighted above a pool which turned out to be full of liquid oxygen." Harry told him, and Eggsy bristled, only to have Harry reach for his shoulders as they sat down in the train. "If I hadn't known that talking would get me just as dead, I might've failed."

Harry was giving him a significant look, and Eggsy swallowed, nodding as he fought not to climb into Harry and refuse to let him go. "I love you, you fuckin' mad man..." 

Harry grinned, reaching to kiss him slowly, leading Eggsy's hands to his neck and his chest, both feeling Harry's strong, steady heartbeat. Rubbing his own thumb under Eggsy's ear, Harry sighed when the kiss ended, their foreheads leaned together as they breathed. "I love you, too, more than I can ever explain." 

They got into Harry's house in a daze of lips and limbs, neither of them willing to let the other go more than an inch. 

Eggsy was dizzy as Harry slammed the door behind them, Mr. Pickles' curious bark ignored as he backed Eggsy into the wall up to their bedroom, pinning their hands together above Eggsy's head as he reveled in the feeling of having Eggsy _back_. 

"We really shouldn't be doing this..." Harry panted, trying to find the gentleman Eggsy always teased him for. 

"Give me one good reason, bruv. I been without you for too fuckin' long." Eggsy growled in response, and he yanked Harry's mouth to his, devouring and taking everything there was as he forced Harry back from pinning him against the wall, dragging the man up the stairs in a deadly waterfall of barely-caught trips and carelessly flung clothes. 

Harry and Eggsy crashed into each other in a mess of desperation and need, trying to pin themselves to the other as they fell onto the bed, clothes twisted half-off and torn at without any regard for buttons or zippers. Harry writhed up against Eggsy, panting harshly as Eggsy nibbled at his neck, his fingers trailing feather-light fingertips over the definition of muscle so cleverly concealed under bespoke. Eggsy broke off from Harry's skin, delving into his mouth eagerly as he wrapped his hands around Harry's jaw. He couldn't help sending a silent thank-you to Merlin and his mother, because Harry was shaking underneath him, coming apart as beautifully as he had the first time they'd fallen into this; both of them too nervous with the other to admit to their virginity, and neither of them ultimately caring as the fumbling first attempt had brought laughter with the pleasure, the opportunity to learn each other all the better that they would be the first to know. Eggsy rolled his hips down, and Harry groaned, sliding his hand under the elastic of Eggsy's pants, spreading clever fingers over the soft skin there. Eggsy whined, the touch not near where he wanted it most, but Harry simply kissed him quiet, leaning their foreheads together and sucking delicately at Eggsy's lower lip until it was just about bruised. 

"I need you to fuck me, Harry." Eggsy managed, his hand coming to rest over the side of Harry's neck, feeling the steady, fast thrill of Harry's pulse beneath his hand. 

"I will," Harry breathed, wrapping his arms around Eggsy and gently shifting until Eggsy was spread beneath him on the bed, Harry drawing Eggsy's legs around his waist, "but first, I want to make you come until you're sobbing for it." Eggsy let out a soft, desperate noise, sucking in a breath as Harry thumbed at his hipbones, sliding his fingers slowly back under the elastic to even more slowly drag down his pants. "I would've given anything for a chance to have you back...I'll not let it go to waste." 

With Harry's whispered admonishment for patience, he lowered himself down to Eggsy's throat, his hands skimming over the lean, tightly muscular chest until his thumbs caught at Eggsy's nipples, circling with just enough catch to draw a hiss. Eggsy tried his level best not to squirm as Harry licked and sucked at his neck: never hard enough to bruise, but just enough that the sting was a brilliant tipping point to the pleasure as he nudged a thigh against Eggsy's groin, giving him some small concession to his need for friction. Eggsy gasped and panted, turning near-black eyes on Harry when he leaned back to observe his work. Eggsy laid out against their bed had Harry's hands tightening on his waist, the glide of his fingers over skin dimpling as he fought to keep control. Harry returned to Eggsy's shoulder, wrapping their hands together and bringing their twined fingers to his mouth after he pressed a line of kisses over Eggsy's arm. Eggsy's legs fell uselessly from Harry's hips as Harry raised himself to his knees and drew back, nimbly pulling his pants the rest of the way off so that Eggsy's erection sprang free, leaking and painfully hard. Harry gathered his knees in either hand and lifted until they hooked over his shoulders, bringing Eggsy off the bed so that he could lick a line only just avoiding where Eggsy was starting to need it most. 

Eggsy threw his head back, his neck a long line against the steel grey sheets, his eyes pressed tightly closed and his hands shaking as he gripped, white-knuckled, at the sheets. "H-Harry--" 

Harry drew his palms over Eggsy's cheeks, pulling just enough that Eggsy was exposed to his tongue, the tight ring of muscle contracting as Harry worked his tongue in deliciously fluid motions against the clench of it. Eggsy let out a moan that sounded as though it had been torn out of him, his back arching impossibly higher off of the bed as Harry licked from his hole over his balls, the edge of a tooth running over his perineum. Before they'd been torn apart, that would have caused Eggsy to babble until Harry managed to fuck the words out of him, but Eggsy had learned to be quiet for long nights alone in basic, and it drove Harry mad, that change. 

The thought of anyone else touching Eggsy like he could was enough to drive the possessive streak Harry kept such a tight hold of roaring to the fore; the desire to take and mark Eggsy on the edge of the urge to turn the man inside out until Eggsy couldn't remember any word but 'Harry', let alone the touch of another. The assertion that posh people loved a bit of rough brought back to mind the memory of his own almost honey pot mission. They weren't given those missions, in the reality of Kingsman. Harry was absurdly thankful that the indelicacy of a honey pot was deemed too dangerous should an agent be later recognized. It meant that in all their time apart, Harry had not gone to bed with anyone else, and although he needed to make sure Eggsy hadn't either before caution could be thrown to the wind entirely, Harry felt that of all his sins, to have slept with anyone else would have been the worst. 

"When was the last time someone touched you like this?" Harry asked, voice purposefully low and rough. He knew what his smooth, posh tones did to Eggsy regularly; when he allowed himself to let go a little, it was as though the effects were increased exponentially. 

"N-Not since...Not since you--" Eggsy managed, groaning as Harry went back to his work, Eggsy crying out tellingly as he gave an aborted twitch. 

"I have to say, I'm thankful for that." Harry told him darkly, letting down Eggsy's legs and prowling his way up between them, Eggsy a panting mess against their sheets as his blond lashes fluttered, cheeks flushed brilliantly and lips swollen and wet. Eggsy reached blindly, and Harry hummed, bending to suck a dark mark into the pale skin of Eggsy's hip as he struggled to grasp the lube from the drawer without squirming out from under Harry's mouth. 

"Please, 'Arry. Please, fuck me." Eggsy groaned, his hands running over Harry's shoulders, through his hair. 

Harry pressed his thumb against the spit-slick hole, Eggsy groaning eloquently and opened his legs wider to try to get Harry to press his long fingers _in_. 

With a click of the lid, Harry lubed his fingers, need drawing his skin tight over his bones as Eggsy opened so beautifully under his ministrations. 

It wasn't going to be as drawn-out or as slow as Harry had wanted it to be, but as Eggsy went mad beneath him, Harry couldn't quite be disappointed about that. Harry sank into the willing heat of the man he loved more than his own life, and sent a silent benediction to everything and everyone that had brought them back together. "Don't treat me li' I'll break, Harry." Eggsy urged, rolling his hips down desperately and squeezing around the thick fullness inside of him. Harry let out a low growl, using one large hand to tilt Eggsy's hips up where he could drive maddeningly into his prostate and grind against the bundle of nerves until Egsy cried. "Fucking need this, 'Arry." 

It was more than enough for the spy, to know that Eggsy had been missing a piece of himself just as thoroughly as Harry had been. When his orgasm came for him, it was explosive and without warning: Harry's whole body locking down as he drove into Eggsy and stayed, Eggsy's muscles weakly milking him of his release as Eggsy shook apart, his cock still hard despite Eggsy's own orgasm. Eggsy groaned as Harry wrapped his hand around his oversensitive cock, sliding his thumb through the dribbled release to slick his way, his thumb nail catching delicately at the slit before he squeezed tight and pressed his hand down in a motion slow enough to send Eggsy screaming and thrashing, Harry's softening cock still trapped inside his body as it locked down, every muscle on high alert. Harry felt his cock twitch valiantly, the urge to keep driving into Eggsy until they were both utterly useless so tempting that Harry felt a little fevered at the prospect. Releasing Eggsy's cock, Harry's eyes met Eggsy's as he reached his hand up, licking slowly at the cum he'd painted his hand in. Eggsy's hips jerked, his breathing stuttering and body insufferably needy as he watched Harry savour the taste of him. Harry caught Eggsy by the back of the leg again, and Eggsy's breathing let out a shocked gasp as he lifted slowly, forcing Eggsy to take his own legs and bend up as he had been before. 

Harry delved his tongue into the hot clench of Eggsy's used muscles, the salty tang of his own cum waiting there for him with the taste like Eggsy's scent. Eggsy let his whole body writhe above him, though 'let' was perhaps not the proper verb. Smirking greedily, Harry gave kitten laps of his tonue to the stretched rim of muscle until Eggsy was nearly sobbing, sinking a finger in to the hilt and finding Eggsy's prostate unerringly. "I can't--" Eggsy gasped, his hips giving aborted little jerks between pushing into Harry's attention and pulling away from the overstimulation. 

"Yes, you can." Harry told him, voice soft and coaxing and perfectly in control as he drove Eggsy near tears with pleasure. Harry added another finger, crooking them until Eggsy arched and screamed, his cock dribbling with what little cum he had left. Harry worked his fingers out very slowly as Eggsy tried to come down from his orgasm with only moderate success. He was trembling head to toe, his lashes heavy on his cheeks as he looked at Harry between his legs, such a perfect sight that Harry wondered how he'd survived losing it. 

Eggsy pulled him up, burying himself into Harry's arms as though he would fight to the death to stay there. 

Which was why, when Harry heard that Eggsy hadn't shot the dog, failing out of the Kingsman programme, Harry couldn't help the shot of disbelief and betrayal, meeting Eggsy at the door as he pulled up looking murderous, having stolen Arthur's cab. 

"You knew the bullets weren't real, Eggsy! You had to have, how else would--" Harry cut off as Eggsy pulled a very real gun on him. 

"Back the fuck up." Eggsy growled, pushing his way past into the house and glancing around as though he'd never been there before. Harry watched as Eggsy walked over to a lamp with narrowed eyes, the gun still drawn, "You want me to fucking trust you? Pulling a fucking gun on your own fucking dog? What if it was me, Harry? You'd shoot me, too, wouldn't you?" Harry opened his mouth to try to vocalize some kind of reply, but the look in Eggsy's eyes stopped him. "You're a murderer, Harry. You would've killed him, to prove you could kill someone like me. Someone who had done nothing against you. Someone who'd trusted you enough to be helpless around you." Eggsy reached under the lampshade, and there was a click, a bug coming free in his hand as he drew it out. He dropped the bug on the floor and smashed it under his boot, moving to the bookcase that had been filled with Eggsy's own books. "How am I supposed to let you touch me? How am I supposed to let you fucking look at me? You could just glance and know a thousand ways to kill me--"

"Eggsy, I would never--You know that I would never be able to hurt you!" 

"Oh, do I, now? You leveled a gun at a fucking dog and pulled the fucking trigger." Eggsy spat, drawing out another bug and smashing it under boot once more before going to a painting and doing it again. Finally the gun lowered, "You were working with the fucking enemy and you didn't even fucking know it, bruv. I can't trust you as far as I can throw you." Eggsy told him, voice defeated and eyes dull. "Arthur has one'a the chips in his neck, 'Arry. Only reason I know you don't is 'cause we fucked. Valentine was at the fucking shop to talk to Arthur." 

Harry swallowed, feeling shaky and off-centre. "H-How...?"

"Turned his fucking head when I wouldn't shoot JB." Eggsy looked at him, his eyes just as hard as they had been during his tirade, "An' it weren't all an act. I don' trust you no more. Why would I fucking do that when you've proven you could just as easily kill me as fuck me? I'm tellin' you this 'cause I know he'll kill you when time comes, and you need to be warned. Hell, he might jus' decide to kill you now, what wit' his bugs destroyed. I don' trust you. I don' know if I can love you, knowin' you'd murder me. But I won' send you to die without a warnin'." 

Harry's glasses gave a ring, and Eggsy gestured to them, not moving from where he was. _"Galahad, Percival has recieved some necessary information: Valentine is planning something at a very bigotted church in the States, and they appear to be on their way there now."_

Harry turned his head, looking at Eggsy with dark eyes, "Fuel the jet, I need to get there when they do." Harry's hands shook as he cut off the call, swallowing thickly. "I have to go...if I don't, they'll come after you, and Michelle, and Daisy. Eggsy, I could never hurt you. Any of you--"

"Why am I supposed to believe you?" Eggsy whispered, voice tight. 

"Because you've known me...you've known me better than anyone else ever has. Please, Eggsy." Harry took a step forwards, and Eggsy stumbled back, hands half-raised to ward him off. "Get them somewhere safe, and don't let anyone know where you are. Eggsy, I love you. I can't go without knowing you'll be safe." 

"Leave, then. But you're not ever gonna find us again when you come back." 

The last thing Harry Hart thought of before a bullet was pointed at him by Valentine was that he would have given anything for Eggsy to be wrong about him; to be safe now. Harry heard in his earpiece as he fell, someone very unlike Merlin screaming 'no'.

_-_

Eggsy walked out of the office and found his mother looking as though she'd seen a ghost she was so sick with worry. He'd screamed loud enough to bring her up here, and Daisy was crying in her arms, but he was numb as he kissed his sister's forehead and took his mother's arms in his hands, "Mum, I need you to do something for me. I need you to stay here with Daise, and lock all the doors and windows. Keep away from them, and don't let anyone in until I get back." 

"But, sweetheart, what about--"

"Mum...Harry...Harry won't be coming back." Eggsy told her, his voice shaking, "I have to go. I need you to lock everything behind me, can you do that for me?" 

Michelle nodded, hiccoughing slightly as she looked at her son. "Why won't Harry be coming back, luv?" Eggsy met her gaze, and that was all the answer she needed, gasping and falling back, wrapped around Daisy even more tightly. "I can do this. I'll keep us safe." 

Eggsy gave her a tiny smile, going in and pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead, too, sweeping through Daisy's soft baby hair as he did. "I know you can. Thank you." 

Eggsy drove to the tailor's, taking the stairs up to the dining room before he knew quite what he was doing. 

He had no gun, though in all honesty, he didn't know if he could stand to so much as breathe the same air with the man who had, undoubtedly, sent Harry to his death. _Tact, Eggsy,_ a voice very much like Harry's admonished in his head, _let him try something, and then prove him wrong about the merits of a street education._

Eggsy was invited in, feeling numb as he sat in the seat Harry had sat in. 

Eggsy knew without a shadow of a doubt that Arthur was making a play to kill him the moment Arthur offered to bend the rules for a man that he had no esteem for. Switching their glasses was easy enough, and as he watched Arhtur die, he wondered if it wasn't simply Harry's morals that had allowed him to level a gun at his dog, but the threat that should he fail, he would die. Eggsy had learned in the Marines that engaging an enemy would occassionally mean collarteral damage; but he'd also taken deeply to heart that escalation of force came with making the wrong choices. As he cut into Arhtur's neck with the very pen he'd just tried to kill Eggsy with, removing the chip with deft fingers and resisting the urge to crush it until he could get to the Kingsman lair and Merlin within it, Eggsy knew what it would have felt like to Harry to know that his failure would cost him his life and Eggsy's. 

Roxy's hands were remarkably stable as she pointed a pistol at his head, but it wasn't long before Merlin had put the pieces together and realized the truth of it. "Eggsy, I'm so sorry." Roxy rushed into his arms immediately, ducking her head down. 

"'S okay, Rox." Eggsy replied, voice tight. He knew that everything he had accused of Harry was true of Roxy, too, but he also knew that Roxy was an army girl: she followed the orders she was given, and escalation of force was simply one of them. "Merlin...I don't know who to trust from Kingsman, but I'm going to try to trust you." 

Merlin gave a short nod, "Percival volunteered to retrieve Harry's body from America, or I would have more back up than the three of us for you. As it is, we need to get to Valentine's base of operations." 

"Then let's go." Roxy murmured, nodding to Merlin easily. 

When all was said and done, Valentine taken thoroughly out, and Eggsy escaped from an amourous princess, Eggsy sat on the jet in silence, staring blankly at the seat across from him wondering when or if the full reality of Harry's death would hit him. 

He called his mother, and was insanely relieved to learn that both she and Daisy were safe. Hundreds of kidnapped officials were flying on the planes their betraying factors had brought to Valentine's bunker, but Eggsy wass thankful that theirs was empty of anyone save himself and, in a half-hour, Roxy; Merlin at the controls.

"Eggsy?" Merlinn called from the cockpit, startling him out of his thoughts for a moment. "Put on your glasses, will you?" 

Eggsy did as he was asked, hearing a comm link come to life as he did. "'Ello?"

 _"You know, we're going to have to come up with a new codename for you."_ Percival's voice was soft and lilting in his ear, gentle in a way that having come to know her, he knew she wouldn't always be. _"How about Excalibur to go with our new Arhtur?"_

"New Arthur already? You lot do move fast." Eggsy sighed, "I don' know--" 

_"Eggsy?"_ A new voice cut in. It was not nearly the composed smooth that Eggsy worked so hard to break, and nor was it the confident sternnesss of a gentle admonishment to a tease. The voice in his ear was scared, strained. It was infinitely real, because Eggsy would not be hallucinating a voice that sounded like that. _"Eggsy...I'm sorry. I love you."_

"Harry?" Eggsy asked, voice stained with tears and hands shaking. "Harry, I saw--"

_"I'm sorry you had to see that...You were right, I am a murderer now--"_

Eggsy felt hot tears fall over from his lashes, and his throat felt like it was closing; his chest felt like it was squeezed so tightly that he'd never breathe again, but he could still speak, "No, no, I was not right. Not at all. Harry, I saw you die. I saw you die and nothing has ever been worse in my life. I love you so fucking much, Harry. I was fucking mad to think that I couldn't trust you..." 

_"Eggsy, we're on our way back to Britain. It would be lovely if you were to meet us."_ Percival took over the comm, her voice still soft and kind. 

"Of course." Eggsy choked, flinching as Roxy boarded the plane looking worried and windswept. "Is...is he okay?"

_"The bullet hit the glasses, but those are thankfully ballistics-rated. He's suffering some trauma from what went on in the church, and the episodes while we were getting him out of hospital, but physically he is no worse for wear than a bump on the head and a gash over his right eye."_

"He'll...he'll be okay?"

"Migh' have a killer scar, but all in all? He'll recover." Merlin answered, coming in behind Roxy. Roxy pulled Eggsy out of his seat, pulling him into a throttling hug as relief took his whole world out from under him, leaving him shaking and crying into her honey-blonde hair. 

Roxy was about all that had Eggsy standing as they waited on the tarmac for Percival and Harry's flight. Merlin had routed their flight path through to his computer on the jet, guiding them through with an uncharacteristic gentleness. Eggsy was thankful for that: Air Traffic Control couldn't get much better than Merlin, and Percival was just as skilled at flying as Merlin was. Roxy was holding his hand, her head rested on his shoulder comfortingly, when they came in for final descent, touching down neatly. She was the only thing holding Eggsy back from sprinting to the plane as the door slowly lowered, the tiny little toy of a thing releasing Percival first, who reached back for Harry. 

Eggsy couldn't be stopped from moving then; watching as Percival took Harry's arms and lifted him carefully down, as though he were too fragile to do that himself. 

Swallowing a knot in his throat, Eggsy took off at a run, skidding to a halt as he caught sight of Harry, finally. 

Merlin was right, there was not much damage and certainly nothing that would be physically debilitating, but the purple bruises and the red gashes knit together with spidering stitches forced a sound from Eggsy's throat like a wounded animal. "Eggsy," Harry sighed, eyes lighting up at the sight of him. Eggsy felt like he would drop to his knees. Felt like there was no air left for him to breathe. But Harry was there, alive and as whole as could be expected after a massacre. 

"Harry Hart, you fucking lunatic." Eggsy managed. 

There was not much in life that went smoothly, Eggsy Unwin had learned time and again. But as he fit into Harry's arms, the both of them shaking as though they could shake the world apart, he knew that there would be nothing that would take Harry Hart from his arms again.


End file.
